Review: Shozy & AAW POLA – HOLA

The POLA comes in a pretty AAW leather like box (see pics) and together with the monitors you get a series of accessories:

48″ Symphonym Tiburon UPOCC Copper Cable.

AAW Carrying Case

Cleaning Cloth

Flight & 1/4″ adapter

Assorted Ear Tips (3 sets of silicone and 3 sets of foam)

2 Year Limited Warranty

POLA of course comes with a replaceable cable and I have to say that the stock cable is both well built, beautiful looking and excellent sounding. Tis is a premium cable that I for sure use with other of my monitors, this isn’t just another boring standard cable as we so often see.

The POLA cable actually a Symphonym Tiburon UPOCC Copper Cable and as this IEM is so focused on higher mids and treble, I can see why they have opted for a copper composite. The cable alone sells for $169 on Null Audio right here. A $169 cable as an accessory with an $800USD IEM, that’s’s very nice.

The POLA is small in size but it is larger in width. The combination of drivers and their technology just requires a certain amount of space and so the POLA will stick out of your ears somewhat. How much will of course depend on your ears but even with this more than average thickness, the POLA is small and it sits comfortably in your ears, even for longer periods.

With silicone tips any universal IEM bothers me after a while but with the foam tips the POLA stays comfortably in your ear without making them hurt at all. The special cable (over ear) only weighs 30 gram and it’s a perfect weight to keep the cable down but he IEMs in your ear. The cable will not pull the monitors down and out of your ear.

Isolation wise this POLA performs as expected, it being a universal monitor. The foam tips isolate a little better imo but sound will always come in and leak out, it’s just the way it is. At he same time I have to say that if you listen at normal volumes, no one else will hear your music.

So while POLA will stick out of your ears somewhat it will be very comfortable and quite silent, and that’s most important.

Cable & Balanced

POLA comes with the Symphonym cable and it is terminated with a 3.5mm single ended plug but you naturally can use it with a balanced cable of your own.

In balanced mode with the Hiby R6PRO as source and the Effect Audio Leonidas as cable the sound becomes wider and more spacious but for my personal taste it is a little too airy and the notes undefined. I in general always promote the balanced output, but this time I’d really recommend going with the stock cable in single ended mode as the music will no longer sound natural .

As a result the rest of the sound description in this review will be with the stock cable in single ended mode.

Sound

Shozy and AAW have published the FR curve on their website and as you can see below you get a flat curve all the way up to the treble. Looking at his graph you might think the treble section is somewhat special but that isn’t specifically audible when you’re listening to it.

“Pola delivers very deep and layered bass, charming and full-bodied vocals and even fine details in the ambiance.”

As I said in my first impression article a few weeks ago, I find that description a little lacking as it doesn’t tell you how excellent the vocals and treble section actually sound. I myself use the medium foam tips with the Pola and these impression were done with a series of different sources.

It is clear that the bass part is very impressive and that’s to be expected when you use a 13mm graphene driver which really knows how to pump out bass. At he same time it’s not that POLA overdoes bass or expands it, that’s also clear from the curve above. Bass is full bodied at all times but it’s also always musical. The toe-tapping factor is high with this one. Not only do you get perfectly balanced quantity and impact, you get quality too. Bass is tight, hits hard but has excellent layering and detail. When needed it reaches down very low, though it depends on your source as well (just as the layering).

POLA’s mids are also really good but it does depend a bit on the source you’re using. With the right source the mids are clear and clean and they body-wise connect perfectly to the bass section. The airiness in the mids is just right, though there of course always are more expensive and more spacious sounding monitors. In this case I’m mostly talking about the lower mid part. The upper mids and vocals are somewhat forward and very dynamic as well as energetic. The vocals just stand out with their excellent clarity and the full bodied bass and mids make that even more obvious. Spaciousness, separation and layering are good to really good depending on the source used. The delivery is always smoother and very musical.

The part on sound continues on the last page HERE, together with the DAP matching, amplification and conclusion

Lieven is living in Europe and he's the leader of the gang. He's running Headfonia as a side project next to his full time day job in Digital Marketing & Consultancy. He's a big fan of tube amps and custom inear monitors and has published hundreds of product reviews over the years.

Smooth jazz or energetic sharp jazz? The K10 is softer while Pola is more energetic with better top end extension. But you’re also comparing different technologies and sound signatures to each other, it isn’t that fair/comparable.